Washington Bureau
October 3, 2009
The revelation that Iran is nearing completion of a new underground nuclear complex has compounded the urgency of diplomatic talks that began last week [THURS] by underscoring how difficult it would be for U.S. or Israeli air strikes to halt the Islamic country's expanding push for atomic power, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Everything about the new site seems designed to put the regime's nuclear program out of U.S. or Israeli reach. It is built on an elite military base, fortified with steel and concrete, and buried under a mountain near the holy city of Qom.
But those characteristics are just one reason the Obama administration has steadfastly downplayed the possibility of an attack. U.S. officials also are worried about the possibility of Iranian retaliation and attacks on American targets and troops around the world; the irrevocable loss of dialogue with moderate factions in Tehran; and the military's ability to fight another war while still deeply committed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. military is developing technologies, including a new generation of "bunker-busting" bombs, that could destroy facilities like the one near Qom.
But there are doubts about the effectiveness of those weapons, prompting current and former U.S. officials to say that a military effort aimed at crippling Iran's nuclear program would require dozens of missile strikes and possibly even the insertion of U.S. troops.
"If you're going to have an effective campaign to go in and throw [Iran's nuclear program] back years, you're talking about a massive, massive effort," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who was involved in examining such scenarios.
"This is not an Iraqi reactor or a Syrian reactor," the official said, referring to Israel's strikes in 1981 and 2007, respectively, on above-ground nuclear facilities in those countries. "This is a different game."
The official and others spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing millitary planning.
President Obama said shortly after taking office that he was prepared to use "all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon." Last week, he reiterated that he would not "rule out any options when it comes to U.S. security interests."
The increasingly difficult nature of upholding that pledge through military strikes, however, became clearer last week when U.S. officials described the newest Iranian site, believed to be a uranium enrichment which plant which could furnish fissile material for a bomb.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said earlier this week that any attack could at best delay construction of a bomb, if Iran intends to build one.
Obama has long favored talks, and international negotiators met Thursday with Iran, reporting progress in several areas and calming for now any talk of tough sanctions or military action.
The administration has never spelled out what might prompt a U.S. strike, deliberately leaving diplomatic maneuvering room. Nevertheless, former U.S. officials and experts said that there are several thresholds that could trigger a U.S. military response.
Leonard Spector, director of the James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies in Washington, said the U.S. would almost certainly react "if we observe that they are producing highly enriched uranium, or…were returning to the design and manufacture of actual weapons."
Although Iran is already enriching uranium at Natanz, the facility is not configured to deliver bomb-grade material. And U.S. spy agencies believe Iran's work on designing a nuclear warhead was suspended in 2003, although Israeli and British intelligence officials believe work has either resumed or continued.
In a more extreme scenario, some experts believe the United States might choose to hold off any attack until Iran actually detonated a nuclear device in a test, as North Korea did earlier this year.
The main components of Iran's nuclear program, and hence the most likely targets of any strike, include an enrichment plant at Natanz, a heavy water reactor at Arak, a uranium conversion plant at Esfahan, and the newly identified site near Qom.
In one scenario, the United States could carry out a single missile strike on the Qom facility alone – a step that might be easier to defend internationally, but would do little to slow Iran's nuclear work.
Crippling Iran's nuclear program would require waves of strikes, officials said, not only on the major nuclear facilities, but also on research installations and locations where centrifuges and other equipment are manufactured and stored.
U.S. intelligence officials have tracked the excavation work at Qom for several years. Officials said many other sites have also been monitored, with no proof of nuclear activity so far.
In the past, U.S. spy agencies have struggled in assessments of other nations' nuclear programs. In Iraq, the United States learned after the 1991 Persian Gulf war that it had missed major signs that Baghdad was pursuing the bomb. Twelve years later, the United States erroneously concluded that the work had resumed, only to discover after the 2003 U.S. invasion that those assessments were wrong.
Because of the difficulties, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned this week that rooting out Iran's the entire nuclear program could require inserting U.S. troops.
"The facilities are in several different places. Some are hardened, underground, in tunnels," Feinstein said in an interview on Fox television. "You'd have to have a ground operation as well as a military operation, and that's very difficult to do."
If strikes are ordered, the U.S. has a major military advantage. Iran's air defenses are regarded as rudimentary. Still, the United States likely would use stealth aircraft and employ electronic measures to shut-down Iranian radar and surface to air missiles.
When Israel attacked a nuclear facility being built in Syria, the nation's radar was fed false information, preventing Damascus from learning it was under attack until the first bomb fell.
John Wheeler, a former Air Force official, said the U.S. could use cyber warfare capabilities to weaken Iranian defenses, disabling the electrical grid and disrupting radio signals and cell phone towers. With the air-defenses taken down, U.S. bombers would be able to fly in relatively safety.
One former defense official said putting teams of special operations forces, known as SOF, on the ground would increase the precision of the bombs, and make placing munitions inside the entrances to hidden bunkers easier.
"The SOF guys would be safe for a while," said the official. "They could assure accurate target acquisition."
U.S. officials are developing an array of warheads for what are called "hard and deeply buried targets," projectiles that are designed to plunge into the earth and penetrate layers of concrete before being detonated by a delayed-action fuse.
The largest penetrator in the mililtary's inventory is the 5,000-pound GBU-28. But much larger munitions, including the 30,000-pound "massive ordnance penetrator," are in development, although experts said early versions might seretly be available for use.
The Air Force also has a weapon known as the GBU-43B, known as the "massive ordnance air bomb." At 30-feet long and more than 21,000 pounds, it also has been dubbed the "mother of all bombs."
Although not a penetrating bomb, the massive ordnance air bomb could destroy exterior features, such as entrances, and severely damage a structure's interior.
Strikes employing such munitions likely would be successive, with the initial launches focused on entrances and outer defenses, followed by missiles meant efforts to drill deeper into the center of the target.
Locating that center would be one of the most difficult tasks. For instance, satellite images of the Qom compound show tunnel entrances and vents scattered across a mountaintop, but reveal little of the layout underneath.
"Unless you have good human intelligence, you probably don't have a good idea where inside the mountain the key target is," said a former senior U.S. military intelligence official. Partly for that reason, the official said, "It is possible to construct a facility that is simply beyond reach."
Nuclear warheads could destroy even a deeply buried structure, but remain an unthinkable option.
Israel has threatened to strike Iran's nuclear sites, but experts have questioned whether Israel's potent but still limited arsenal would be capable of destroying Iran's program.
Beyond the obvious diplomatic fallout, military options also carry many other risks.
An attack that left even remnants of the program intact likely would harden Iran's resolve to acquire the bomb, and push the program deeper underground. U.S. spy agencies have warned that Tehran may retaliate by launching missiles toward Israel, striking U.S. installations in Iraq and Afghanistan, closing off the vital Strait of Hormuz, and carrying out terrorist attacks on other continents through the militant group Hezbollah, which it supports.
"The assumption is that they would strike out, unleashing their terrorist clients and using whatever military capabilities they've got," said a senior former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with classified assessments. "I don't think anybody seriously contemplates that they would say, 'Game over.'
Copyright © 2009, Tribune Interactive
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